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CAGED in PracticeChris Brown

October 30, 2009

Abstract

This is my initial super-naive foray into this issue. It does NOT do what I wanted. For

that, see the more recent one page caged paper, which gives an algorithm for findingany chord anywhere on the guitar neck. If this early thinking helps motivate that, great,

but if you want to cut to the chase you know where to go.

What would Gene Bertoncini do? First, I have no earthly idea, but second, certainly

nothing like this. What would a music theorist do? Same answer. My goal is to avoid

theory (too hard for me) and to avoid musical talent (Ive no choice) and to see how a few

simple rules allow chords to be placed in five different positions per octave.

1 Readers Guide and Motivation

If you only have two minutes., Figs. 3 and 5 really say it all. Figs 6 8 are where Imheading; movable progressions as well as movable chords.

How many possible guitar chords are there? It depends on how you count, of course, One

overestimate is to ignore what strings are plucked, assume you can choose whether to fret a

string with your thumb or not, then that you choose to fret 4 of the remaining 5 strings, for

each of which you can choose one of 5 frets or open. That would be 2 5 54 = 6250chords

The number that actually make musical sense and are also playable is much fewer, of course

but weve all seen inch-thick catalogs of guitar chords. My goal is to reduce the number of

things we have to think about to some small number like five.

For me, the CAGED system answers the question: how do I produce a particular chord

at an approximate position? (Music theory being what it is, CAGED may do much more.)The system simplifies what you have to remember for this task. If youre lucky and talented

you dont worry about this stuff intellectually, you just do it. Im not lucky that way: I worry

The CAGED system doesnt seem to be a panacea. It does not offer a perfectly smooth

uniform recipe for everything we want to know. For one thing, I suspect that the range of

chords produced from these shapes is not inclusive (I bet there are lots of useful chords,

including lots of non-barred ones, that are not most naturally explained as simple evolu-

tions of these shapes). For another, the natural evolution of a CAGED shape to get chord

modifications like minors doesnt always work (See Section 4). Also, as well see, there are

variations (that must be memorized) in just where to place the CAGED shapes on the neck.

Also, I find it hard to barre above the 10th fret.


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C A G E D

Figure 1: The CAGED Shapes

2 Assumptions and Overview

Im assuming youre a guitarist and you know about scales, triads and seventh chords de-

rived from scales, major and minor keys, and maybe the circle of fifths [2]. As usual I use

upper-case letters for major keys and scale degrees (D, IV), lower case for minor (b, vi).What follows is my attempt to derive chord-progression exercises (Figs 6 8). CAGED

is really about producing the same chord in different positions by systematically changing

how it is fingered. The basic main result is shown in Fig. 3. I am in fact hoping that I (and

you) can forget literally everything thats in this paper and only remember the results of

the exercises, which are chord shapes linked in time, automatically, almost subconsciously

adaptable to any key. How much of such a happy outcome would be due to skull-sweat

how much to practice, how much to talent, and how much to the CAGED method I have no

notion.

3 The Major CAGED Shapes

Fig. 1 shows the building blocks, always called shapes. Chords are what you get when

you fret a shape at a position and play. In this paper, first position means bar location

zero. As far as I can tell, 2nd position means bar location two. There does not seem to be

a corresponding position name for bar location one. For two and above, I take position to

equal bar location. Back to the shapes These shapes produce our favorite simple C, A, G,

E, D (major) chords (hence the acronym) in the first position, and they have the distinction

of being movable up the neck via the bar (or barre, as we French say), and (more or less)

being simply modified to minor, seventh, etc. forms.


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4 Some Minor and Seventh CAGED Shapes

Applying the simplest, uniform rules to the CAGED shapes (drop the third for minor, add

the flatted 7th or drop the root for the dominant 7th chord, or both), we can get some other

simple shapes. Of course there are five types of seventh chords but here I stick to one. Not

being Bertoncini nor even having a big chord encyclopedia, I have zero clue whether people

really use these shapes or what other better shapes or shape variations exist.

Of course there are tons of suspended, 9th, 11th, 13, flat 5, split chords, etc. Since

the CAGED method is really about making the same chord in a different position with a

different shape, it should be useful for more advanced chords too.

In any event, things go wrong with my simple rules for the G and C chords. We sometimes

wind up with possibly usable patterns (see caption), but not always.

Maj

Min

7

Min7

C A G E D

Figure 2: Simple Minor, Dominant Seventh, and Minor Seventh Shapes. C: C can be barred

up the neck, maybe c too, but awkward fingering on string 1. C7 doesnt need a bar but that

loses str. 1 and 6 in general. c7 gives several choices, can bar the lower frets, pick strs. 1

and 3 or 3 and 5: should bar upwards OK. A: textbook simplicity. G: g very awkward: use

D, E, or A shape instead. g7 rather weird: lots of choices, can pick a combination you like or

use another shape. E. Textbook. D. Textbook but as always, 6th string is tacit in all shapes.


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5 The Major CAGED Chords

Our obviousBasic Principle: Moving a shape up a fret raises the corresponding chord root

by a semitone..

E.g.,a C shape barred at fret 2 gives a D chord.

From this principle flows a not-as-obvious Corollary: Putting the CAGED shapes end

to end, in that order, and rotating them generates all the CAGED-shaped chords on the neck.

Thus you can find five each of C, A, G, E, and D chords (Fig. 3) at or below fret 12. Thus

we have our first opportunity for practical exercise: learn to find the CAGED chords all over

the neck. The slight perturbations of the bar positions are annoying.


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C

A

G

D

E

Figure 3: The guitar neck, nut to left, with C,A,G,E,D major chords overlaid (top to bottom):

watch the C and D overlap. Learn!


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6 Un-CAGED Keys

What about a B chord? What about a Gchord? Generally how do we answer questions like

How do I play a chord with root X at or near position Y?

First, note that Fig. 4 is really just another version of Fig. 3: it illustrates theCorollary

of Section 5. So you can read off it that if you want to play a G chord in fifth position use a

D shape, barring on fret 5.

Bar 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

|----------------------------------

Root |

C | C A G E D

|A | A G E D C

|

G | G E D C A

|

E | E D C A G

|

D | D C A G E

Figure 4: What shape to use, given certain bar positions (column) and desired CAGED root

(row).

Now we can use theBasic Principleof Section 5 to extend our result to all roots. Fig. 4

shows shapes stepping up the neck (to the right) to produce higher chords (up the scale on

the left).

To use the table in Fig. 5, choose a root (row) and your desired bar position (column)

and look in table for the shape. If you find a blank, you can use the shape to the left or the

right on that row in its indicated column.. E.g.,you want a Bchord in sixth position youfind an exact solution: bar at sixth fret and use an E shape. You want an F chord in 7th

positions: no luck, but you can use the A shape at fret eight or the C shape at fret five.


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Bar 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

-----|---------------------------------------Root |

G# Ab | G E D C A

G | G E D C A G

F# Gb | E D C A G

F | E D C A G

E | E D C A G E

D# Eb | D C A G E

D | D C A G E D

C# Db | C A G E D

C | C A G E D C

B | A G E D C

A# Bb | A G E D C

A | A G E D C A

Figure 5: What shape to use given an approximate bar position and any desired root.


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7 Some CAGED Cadence Progressions

Any major melody can be harmonized with I, V, IV chords, but the result is often boring

Bluegrass, lots of (non-Irish tradition) folksongs, some rock, and some blues are based on I

V, IV chords (but make liberal use of others!).

Chords often come in predictable progressions, especially cadences (strong endings to

phrases or pieces). For the I, V, IV harmonizations a usual cadence is IV, V, I.

Jazz tends to use circle of fifths progressions, implying the cadence ..., iii, vi, ii, V, I. Your

favorite theory book will tell you more. (My two favorites are [1; 2].)

Applying what we have done so far to the idea of cadence progressions gives us some new

exercises. Navigating along the dashed arrows in Figs. 6 8 should build up little musico-

muscular-spatio-temporal routines (skills, licks,...), which may help in reading and playing

music smoothly. Chord numbers (ii, V) are general, but names (G, e) refer to the chords for

shapes in first position. Practice all positions!My assumption here is that we want to remain in approximately the same position for

these progressions. This makes for boring backup if done for too long, and dramatic shifts

are part of the art, but maybe we can think of those shifts as punctuation between the more

restricted positioning of these exercises.

The reader could extend these cadential mini-exercises off to the left by adding more

chords in the progressions. Work out favorite or useful progressions. Obvious ones are fur-

ther excursions around the circle of fifths, or the popular (seemingly ubiquitous) Pachelbel

Progression: I, V, vi, iii, IV, I, IV, V. Wiesenthal suggests... e7, A7, D, d7, G7, C, c7, F7, B ,..

[3].

8 Conclusion

Were done. To play a progression around a particular position in a particular key. find

the key in the column labels of Fig. 5, find your desired root bar location in the row labels

and use the progression in Figs 6 8 corresponding to the shape you find in that row and

column of the table. cest tout. All you need to do is make it automatic. Put this paper

under your pillow, sure, but dont forget to practice a bit too.

9 Future Work: A Minor Modest Proposal

All the work of this paper could be re-worked for the minor keys. The triads induced by

roots in a major scale (and assumed in this paper) are I, ii, iii, IV, IV, vi, vii . For a minor

key youll need i, ii, III, iv, V, VI, vii. Then there are a handful of modes to consider! Since

the chord shapes (i.e. Fig. 1) vary, this whole blamed exercise needs to be redone unless

theres some sort of meta-shortcut. I expect there actually will be such a shortcut, or menta

breakthrough, that allows generalization without all this explicit intellectualization. That

is, I hope the work proposed so far can help internalize some principles that should then be

easier to apply in new contexts.


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References

[1] Don Haerle. The Jazz Language. Studio 224, Columbia Pictures Publishers, 16333 NW

54th Ave, Hialeah, FL 33014, 1980.

[2] S. Kostka and D. Payne. Tonal Harmony. Knopf, NYC, NY, 1984.

[3] John Wiesenthal. Private communication, March 2007.


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Crogress ons

GF

IV V I

G

V

ii

ii

dae

iii vi

7

7

7

d7

A Progressions

A

IV

V

ii

IV

E

E

D

7b

7

7

7bc# f#

iii vi ii

fret 4

Figure 6: Some C and A Cadence Progressions. In A, were in trouble with c# so use e shape

Practice all positions.


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GD

IV

V7

C

IVa D7

ii

ii7

a 7

G Progressions

viiii

eb

E ProgressionsA B

IV V I

Vii

ii

viiii

g# c# f#

f#7

7

7

fret 4

B7

Figure 7: Some G and E Cadence Progressions. More trouble with g# etc. Practice all

positions.


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7

V

ii

ii7

IV V I

iii vi

D ProgressionsDAG

A7

e

e7

bf#

Figure 8: Some D Cadence Progressions. Practice all positions.

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